


The Woman Woman

by Ariel_x



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Adlock, F/M, Fix-It, OC death, a touch of gasoline, for smut scroll to the very end, ignorant author, indefatigable Sherlock, life in terrorist camp, shameless fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 08:14:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2540708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariel_x/pseuds/Ariel_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He observes the hushed, huddling women from the corner of his eye while patrolling supplies. He instantly recognizes her -- she is hard to hush, her characteristic imperiousness evident even in the shapeless garb she wears to keep proper.</i><br/> </p><p>Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler in Karachi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Woman Woman

**Author's Note:**

> This wouldn't have been finished (or continued) ever without the encouragement of the amazing, magic, and very kind [AllTheBellsInVenice](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AllTheBellsInVenice/pseuds/AllTheBellsInVenice). Go read her stuff and _really_ enjoy yourself! 
> 
> _This is written to convince myself that the S02E1 ending is even remotely possible._

_Coincidences -- no, fortuities -- yes._

 

*  
Chatter. Vague insinuations, operation names made to sound like brands of tinned biscuits -- internet chatter. He was ever present on several, shall we say, unsavory forums, haunted a rather wide range of bulletin boards, kept up with a few obscure information-relay blogs, and was, as far as possible, aware. Then there were his contacts in the surveillance community. One doesn’t keep pulling the British government out of hot waters time after time without leaving an impression, and he could be one charming devil when he wished. Mycroft did his part in keeping him current as well, once in a while drawing his attention to one or other … ah, developments, as his brother liked to call them.

Fluent Arabic and passable Farsi helped, of course. He’s had several personas he’s maintained over the years. An American teenager, eager to escape his parents’ clutches to fight for the right cause, a formerly German 33 year old, converted and studying at a Yemeni Madrassa, a barely literate middle-aged farmer in Kinshasa, a Moroccan café owner. On the internet, no one knows you’re Sherlock Holmes.

Presently he was in Mumbai, traveling under the name of one Hippolyte Vernet. His skills in Arabic were impressive, but for the past week he wished his Sanskrit-reading ones were better. The wealthy businessman who’ve contacted the consulting detective to solve a convoluted riddle of family betrayal put him up in a very nice city hotel, but that was it for the luxuries; there was quite a bit of leg-work involved. The case was over, his flight wasn’t until the next evening, he’d slept, he’d eaten, he’d had a beedi or two with cafe regulars three blocks down the street. He should’ve kept brushing up on his Hindi, but he didn't really feel like it. Instead, he was staying away boredom by catching up on his interwebs. Scrolling quickly past asks and offers on an Arabian horse rearing forum, something snagged his attention. The subject name was _Wymn Nahyh Sowt_ , the bulletin mentioned an unpaid debt and vague accusations of unreliability. He knew instantly. It took him half an hour to reroute his ticket through New Delhi and delay it for a month, then a quick sweep of the neighboring shops, and he was on his way north. 

*  
His journey was not particularly pleasant, but he knew whom to approach and had sufficient cash at hand. He made it to Karachi quite quickly, and got directly to business. First, the necessary supplies, then -- discrete recognizance and a covert stashing job in caves to the north. After a trek back to the city the operation started in earnest. He couldn’t fake being Arab or a Pakistani for that matter, but a tan he could do, and his Arabic was very good, fluent, glottal. Accented, true, but that went with looking like an inbred Englishman. Fortunately, there were enough Western boys willing to fight for Allah, from UK and other Western countries, wan, blue-eyed, with hearts inflamed in madrassas, whose speech sounded like his: Queen’s English and accented Arabic. He blended in and didn’t raise too many questions. 

*  
They took him to a training camp in the valley. Dirty tents, a bunker, a few SUVs. An endlessly humming generator. Canisters stacked in a nearby cave, right by the ground spring, which is their only supply of fresh water. Two dozen men from all over the world, but mostly Arabs. Wooden barracks dug into the earth and rock hold the prisoners. All women, five of them, all held for ransom. They’re not treated badly, they’re treated not at all -- all wear black burkas, all allowed outside twice a day to relieve themselves, wash water brought to them once a day, along with their “breakfast” -- a version of oatmeal ladled into chipped wooden cups. They also get bread and some sort of stew before nightfall, but that’s it. Enough to survive. 

He observes the hushed, huddling women from the corner of his eye while patrolling supplies. He instantly recognizes her -- she is hard to hush, her characteristic imperiousness evident even in a sack the women are warped in to keep proper. 

*  
At camp, he plays the role of bitter but quiet foot soldier. They quickly think of him as reliable and precise, they're used to men who keep to themselves. He is a good, very good actor: when he's not at communal prayer or eating or patrolling or doing his chores, he is reading the holy verse, he’s thought as devout. He is reasonably friendly to his tent-mates; he gets up early to boil water; he is polite when it's his turn to divvy up the food.

Ahmed, a blue-eyed twenty-two year old Iraqi whose family fled to Syria, sleeps on a cot next to his, and they get along fine. For one, they're both suffering from nicotine withdrawal. It also helps that Sherlock is unusually patient when Ahmed goes on and on about his close and not-so close relations, and can even recite their names back when needed.

What he has to do is challenging, but straight-forward: get her released into his custody, get tasked with moving her to a different site (the camps are a dime a dozen in these mountains) and then disappear with a clear trace: she will be dead along with her guard, her trail definitely and permanently cold, she’ll be free. But fortune laughs at best laid plans… four days later his hand is forced. 

Dani (early forties, married, and what, Albanian?) occupies a mid-commander post in the organization’s hierarchy, comes in before dawn and wakes Sherlock and then Ahmed, orders them to leave the tent quietly. They are to take one of the prisoners to a Karachi compound, for interrogation. The woman in question is standing with her arms wrapped tightly around herself by the prisoner barracks fence, a Kalashnikov pointed at her by a fellow Sherlock knows as Mahjib. She is Ms. Adler. 

 

*  
By nightfall they descend from the mountains in one of the camp’s Land Cruisers, a heavy gun mounted on the roof. Sherlock is all pins and needles, he knows they can’t go into town with a gun up there, it has to be dismantled, or vehicles exchanged. He is in the front passenger seat, Kalashnikov heavy between his thighs. Adler is sat between two other men in the back. She is manacled, hands and feet, and he knows they have at least one gun trained on her. They probably take turns holding it. He doesn’t really need to see, he’s too busy observing and memorizing the route. Half an hour later the twists and turns of the serpentine road end and they’re riding through the desert. 

Ahmed’s phone chirps. He curses, Sherlock hears muffled sounds (Ahmed must have passed the gun to Mahjib), then, in Arabic, “my mommy’s the most patient woman on earth,” and Ahmed starts speaking haltingly into his Razr. “Yes mommy, yes mommy. Undoubtedly. Mommy… mommy… mommy! … certainly. Yes. And you too. Kiss kiss.” Ahmed hangs up and Mahjib says something curt and obscene under his breath, then laughs. Sherlock catches Ahmed’s glare in the rear view mirror, and pretends he heard nothing. They drive on. Dani, next to Sherlock, seems to clutch the wheel harder, but doesn’t give any other indication of worry or concern. Apparently, bickering in tight quarters is par for the course, or may be Dani is just that good. Just then Dani gets a phone call of his own. 

Oh, Dani is good. Not a muscle twitches on his face, his eyes are kept on the road the entire time the phone is pressed to his ear. “Agreed,” he says into his mobile and hangs up. They drive on in silence, but Sherlock is certain the game has changed. 

*  
After a relatively short time, they pull off onto a true dirt road. The car’s speed is too fast for the uneven surface, and Sherlock starts worrying one of the guns might accidentally go off. He has his under the tunic, accessible, of course, loaded and with safety on, but those clowns in the back… They keep being tossed in the car like potatoes in a sack for what seems to be an age, but really is just under an hour. A large metal hangar looms ahead. Dani stops the car a few meters in front of it, gets out, and after a moment a side door is lifted. They drive in, Dani orders him to get the door back down. Sherlock does as the vehicle moves deeper into the hall and makes a u-turn. He scans the walls, the seemingly pristine concrete floor. The only source of light are the SUV’s high beams, and it’s clear the hall is cavernous and empty. Leaving the roof gun behind then. 

Dani yells for everyone to get out, and they do. Adler is taken to a wall, away from the car, but she is weak (or pretending to be weak?), unable to support herself and slides down to the floor. The four of them huddle together and Dani tells them the plan: new orders. Their captive is not to be taken into town, they’re to get rid of her and deliver her corpse. They are to videotape the proceedings. Sherlock is to do the beheading, Ahmed will shoot her dead if Sherlock botches it up on the first attempt. He, Dani, will be filming on his camera phone. Mahjib will keep watch. 

His mind is racing. He can feel the surge of adrenaline, and that, of all things, calms him. He can do this. Dani will be virtually disarmed if he’s filming. Ahmed is a bit dim and in any case will be surprised -- but his gun will be loaded and the safety would be off. Not good. Mahjib will be focused on the outside noises; that might give him a pause in which to act. Still, three of them, Adler in the middle, it would be a miracle if no stray bullet hits her. As the solution becomes evident he feels the blood raise in his cheeks. He’s glad the hall is so dim, but to be sure, he raises an edge of his keffiyeh and covers his face. In any case, he would need his face to be covered for filming. 

*  
Everything happens in a rush of dance moves, but it takes a preamble to start the dance. Ahmed is in position with the woman kneeling by his feet, her burka removed and a head scarf covering her hair and neck. Dani is busy directing Sherlock on how to hold the sabre; Sherlock has swished it around a bit pretending to be an excited novice and Dani is satisfied; “On my count,” he says, but she -- headlamp behind her, making her appear more ephemeral and even slighter than she already is -- she asks to be granted a moment to prepare. Her voice is hoarse, quiet, but dignified. He’s surprised when she produces a Blackberry from somewhere inside her robes -- he has to strain not to roll his eyes -- some clever masterminds these terror tzars are. Dani seems unphased. “No calling,” he says. She glares at him, then lowers her eyes and types. When he moves the blade to level with her neck, she’s already passed her phone to Ahmed and shut her eyelids. He takes a deep breath. He’s ready. 

“Ahhhhh.” 

Her eyes flutter open and the foolish woman turns her head towards the direction of the sound -- towards him. He sees instant recognition. It’s now or never. He whispers to her to run on his command (he later will feel daft for not issuing it immediately), and, brandishing the sword with both hands, with all his might, slashes at Dani just below his ribcage -- and nearly cuts him in half -- blood gushing everywhere, Ahmed and Mahjib screaming in shock and reaching for the triggers. 

In this horrid mayhem, having just bellowed “Run,” he still manages a moment of smugness: both their Kalashnikovs are disarmed -- and it’s disgustingly easy to kill them both once his handgun is out. Two moving targets. Mid-scream. Two shots. Three dead bodies. 

He has a knot in his throat, but now’s not the time. A notch in his mind to process it later would do; now’s the time for clean up -- and a proper cover up. They night is short, they have to hurry. First, he’ll have to remove that stupid roof fixture. 

*  
They have to move really, really quickly, before the rigor mortis set in. He is still high on adrenaline, a crisp checklist crystal-clear and on a loop in his mind. He knows his dance moves, it will be fine, it will all be fine (he has a momentary internal frown at John not being here, but it's instantly squashed). First things first -- and Sherlock shushes Irene, who is holding on to him for dear life and is repeating his name -- over, and over, and over again. 

He gently removes her arms from his neck, and, with her hands gripped in his, bends and kisses her, as firmly as he is holding her hands, on the lips. She falls silent, looks up at him with those bottomless eyes of hers. “Mr. Holmes,” she starts, but he interrupts her. “Ms. Adler,” he says. “We have to get out of here. Quite fast.”

Separating from her, he goes over to retrieve supplies from the SUV. As soon as he can manage it, he shoves a water bottle in her hands -- “You have to drink it all” -- and, looking at her, so small and so uncharacteristically weak -- she managed “Mr Holmes,” but she’ll have to manage so much more tonight. “Please?”. He then makes her eat a protein bar, practically force-feeds her, then another. She is eating, the second bar going down more smoothly than the first -- so he lets her be, and then deftly, economically, cuts the bullets from Ahmed and Mahjib’s bodies and sits their corpses in the back of the vehicle. Dani’s remains he wraps in a vast rag from the trunk, then positions him in the rear seat next to the other men; picks up shell casings, runs the length of the cavern to check for stray bullets and blood splatter, anything else they might have left behind -- then -- with her help -- food and water seems to have worked their magic, she feels much stronger now -- removes the roof gun -- and mops up Deni’s blood with the woman’s burka. Check, check, check, and check.

Sherlock now produces a sealed syringe kit from under his shirt. “I know you’ve had better evenings, and the night’s by no means over, but we have to do this. We have to do this now.” She complies wordlessly. Three full syringes of the woman’s blood evenly distributed over Dani's stains later, they are on their way to Sherlock’s stash in the mountains. 

*  
The next movement of the dance is even more physically exhausting. He reaches his hideout (a deep cave where there are virtually no mountains), moves the stiff mummified bodies he stored there into the Land Cruiser, replenishes a camp canister from the stored gasoline, and turns to Irene for another dose of blood. She is nearly fainting, is too weak to think straight, he is sure -- but she extends her arm, he attaches a tourniquet, and gets another fifty milliliters.

He returns to her in about two hours, after sending the car careening into a ravine, then following it (gingerly crawling on all fours down the dry and prickly slope -- he wouldn't be able to do it if the moon wasn't so bright tonight, lucky him), rearranging the bodies yet again and making sure no teeth on the female corpse survive, after dosing the insides of the car with gasoline (it must appear as if the container burst open on its own) and setting the whole thing on fire. After crawling away and up the slope again, back-lit by the blaze. After running the six miles separating them. Back to the woman. He runs, and goes over his next moves. It’s all planned, he can feel the end of it -- another mile or so --- … He keeps running.

*  
It's now the deadest hour of the night, and god, it’s cold. The stretch of asphalt meant to be a parking lot is lit by a single dim lantern hoisted on a wooden pike. She stays in the car’s back seat, pretending she doesn’t exist, while he walks over to a small hut by the side of the road. The inn keeper fishes a gigantic key with a plastic scrap attached out of an ancient desk drawer. The black sharpie scrawl on the plastic says 4. Sherlock drives up to the shack and blocks the entrance. She sneaks out first, key in shaking hand, as he reaches for the duffel bag, bangs the driver door shot and walks around. The lock is rusty. Finally, the door is unlocked and they’re inside. The concrete bunker lacks every comfort; unheated, with windows that barely close. The water in the manual sink is cold. There are several rough woolen blankets; there are sheets, but who knows when they were laundered last.

One narrow bed. Metal chair. Sink and bucket. They will be spending the night in this shit-hole and will have to share the bed. He still doesn’t trust her, but he needs to close his eyes for a few hours, and she just might be frightened enough to be as vigilant as needed.

And so they lie down fully clothed, under the blankets. An absurd thought about missing his Belstaff briefly hovers at the edge of his consciousness, but she hugs him, her smell unfamiliar and sharp in his nostrils – so he breaks it down -- horse manure, and smoke, and burlap, and that soap they let captives use, and a bit of sand (sand? – his mind hitches for a second), and her sweat -- something very foreign, yet pleasant. 

He wraps his right arm under her, and realizes her body is trembling, her face hidden in his chest. She is letting the tension go. She is releasing. 

And it dawns on him, it finally dawns on him: they got away with it. He’s got away with it. He’s got away with murder. 

*

Later, in London, holding her camera-phone in his hand, Sherlock will remember those twenty four hours as acutely as if he was still living them. The sound Dani’s body made when he slashed at it; the sound Irene made when his fingers slid inside her cunt. Because that is what he did. There were no need to be vigilant, not really. They were in the middle of nowhere, they were no ones, nameless beings floating in a sea of endorphins and oxytocin. “I’m not hungry,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “No, neither am I,” said he, as his fingers borrowed under the layers of her dress. She was lying on her side, her face no longer buried in his chest, and she was stroking his cheek. Her nails, incredulously, were perfectly shaped and still painted red, and he can almost feel the little tender scratches now. The moment he reached her skin, she connected her lips to his, and it starts a frantic, desperate make-out session. 

He looks out into the rainy street outside, his memory is vivid. His own skin suddenly smells of gasoline, as it did that night. 

“Don’t lie to me, you hungry little cunt” -- he manages to say between their insane kisses. He finds her very, very wet. His thumb is grazing her clitoris, while two of his fingers are hooked inside her, exploring, strumming. “You clearly crave nourishment” -- he pulled her robe off of her, her knickers are somewhere around her ankles. He is still fully dressed, they’re still under those abominable rough covers. “And so I do, Mr Holmes,” she says, and leaves him completely bereft and cold -- she’s lounged under, lifting _his_ shirt, pulling _his_ trousers off, throwing off the blanket, and then pulling it quickly back again over her shoulders like a cape -- and oh god, her mouth is on his cock, slowly driving him insane. “Look at me,” he groans, and slides his fingers into her disheveled coiffure -- and she lifts her eyes as her mouth finally takes him in to the hilt.

*  
He twiddles his phone, and remembers her coming under his mouth, his tongue lashing her insides, his hand working at her clit (“Look at you,” she said when her breath returned -- and dove in for another frantic round of kissing). He stares at the droplets sliding down the window pane, and remembers that feeling -- of having wings, a mindless, primal drive as he buried himself in her, nibbling at her neck, biting her nipples, a hand twined in her hair, pulling it tight, having her come undone and coming undone himself. 

“Your dress is very flimsy, Ms. Adler,” he hears his own voice in his mind's eye -- she returned to bed wrapped in a sheet, after a feeble attempt at using the hand-operated sink. Graceful, so graceful. Ever the woman (he realizes he might have said that bit aloud). Needless to say, that "dress" didn’t stay on for long. He chuckles, but then remembers the bit of plaster on the inside of her elbow, where he drew blood, and feels a tag at the pit of his stomach. The notches he kept making in his mind to think about later are still there. He knows it was all worth it, but for now, he will think of how their bodies were glorious together, how her skin so very velvety, so very perfect, felt on his, how her smell was stronger and more intoxicating than the gasoline fumes he smelled that dreadful night. 

She was worth it. Everything, everything. 

He places the phone into the drawer and slides it closed. 

“THE Woman,” he says to no one in particular and to the whole of London personally. 

_Fin._

**Author's Note:**

> The canon story has enormous, gaping, terrible plot holes. It was clearly written without too much in-depth thinking. I wrote the story because the plot holes were eating at me, I had to prove to myself that somehow, in some way, I could imagine how the story would be plausible. There was a lot of cringing when writing this. A lot. 
> 
> I've tried to fill in those gaps while remaining as culturally sensitive as possible. I've done the best I could given that
> 
> 0\. There are tight canonical constraints.  
> 1\. I've been to the Middle East, but never to Pakistan.  
> 2\. I've interacted with Arabs, but never really lived among them.  
> 3\. All my Muslim friends are very secular.  
> 4\. My knowledge of terrorist camp life is entirely made up. All of this is made up!  
> 5\. I don't speak Arabic.
> 
> Please don't judge me too harshly, but all constructive criticism is welcome (and if you like the story, a Kudos click wouldn't go amiss!).
> 
> If you want to read one true account of prisoner life in (some) terror camps, read [this ](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/magazine/theo-padnos-american-journalist-on-being-kidnapped-tortured-and-released-in-syria.html?smid=fb-share). You can also read accounts of life in GULAG, or German concentration camps: details vary, but the gist doesn't, or if it does -- not much.


End file.
